"Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Our soul's true anchor

Every Christian will say we are saved by grace - that we do not merit God's forgiveness and love; that in His mercy, He has embraced us into a relationship with Him.

Intellectually, we believe this statement, but how many of us truely have this fact rooted into our whole beings? Cause many a time, our behaviours betray what we profess.

If I am brutally honest with myself about the state of how I feel about God's love - a statement the speaker made during last Sunday's sermon pretty much sums it up: When I am good, God loves me. When I am bad, I feel He is disappointed.

Don't we feel like that? Somehow, something nags at us that God loves us less when we fall short. To what are we anchoring God's love on? Do we hold an unspoken belief that we have a splodge of "righteousness" in us that is deserving of God's love? And if we remove these "good works", does the voice of guilt suggest that God loves us less?

Even as I was pondering on this, I come to the realization, thankfulness and hope that God makes the effort to remove the layers of false foundations to do with what we perceive as reasons He loves us.

We often come to God through the lens of imperfect human relationships. God showed me a picture in my mind: of an incident with my mum when I was six, which involved my dentist trying to extract my teeth. Being terrified of needles, I kicked the dentist and after a few tries, he gave up and told my mum that he did not wish to treat me anymore. Without say, when we got home, my mother was incensed and threatened to perform the extraction herself using a pair of plyers. She actually took the plyers out in her rage and pinned me down to make a point! It was a terrifying incident through the eyes of a six year old. I remember crying my heart out, and my grandmother trying to hold my mum back. Into this picture, God whispered:

Child, I was holding you in the corner when anger was thrown at you, holding you when fear and separation prevailed. Every teardrop fell on Me. Through imperfect love, My love is perfect and complete.

The ferocity of God's love to hold and keep us then comes alive to me in the following scripture:

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: "For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:28, NKJV)

We need to live the above and let it take root - make it as natural as the air we breathe. Lord, let Your Holy Spirit reveal the full width, the immeasurable depth of the Father's love; through times of victory, lows of defeat and hardship of discipline, impart the knowing in our spirit that Your everlasting arms are constant as Your word to us:

"... according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height-- to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen." (Eph 3:16-20, NKJV)

God does not love us because we are good, God loves us because He is good.

That is the only foundation truth that allows us to genuinely change to become like Christ. What is our soul's anchor, our goodness or His? I am asking the question afresh...

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Welcome, and greetings! RLS 101 serves to capture 'learning snapshots' of the times and encounters where God has impressed something on my heart. This is so that others can share in what I am learning in my own journey of uncovering and understanding His mind, character and will in practical everyday living. Feel free to browse, comment or keep in touch via email subscription (authentic users only, no spam please).
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